Personal account of the Drifter Summit (1st of May, YC 127)

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
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I still have unfinished business here.

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I refrained from replying to this topic to see how things would play out. I was hoping to be proven wrong and to see things return on topic, but this wasn’t to be.

I have been civil and patient but I will no longer entertain the antics of miss Malitia. She has been pushing for a narrative and have been acting in bad faith for any kind of discussion. When making a claim, it is on the person who makes the claim to prove it is true and not on the other partie to provide proof that the claim is incorrect/wrong. You have made multiple false claims and/or statements in this topic and whenever this is proven, you make a new claim and keep repeating the same narrative as if the narrative is correct until all claims have been disproven.

While this topic has been derailed severely, I want to provide insights on several things that have been raised. This is with the disclaimer that this is only based on my time being part of the actual organisation of ARC:

  • When it comes to putting out a bounty on items or data, it is miss Priano who makes the call and she uses her personal funds for this;
  • While I don’t have any information on the time before I got involved with ARC, I believe it is at least plausible that ARC or the community surrounding has done things that have been brought up. I strongly oppose and condemn such actions that would prevent others to become like ARC and it’s community. I believe in cooperation for the benefit of all within Empire Space and will continue to give this my all.
  • I strongly oppose the notion that ARC is an enemy of any of the Empires;
  • While the efforts of ARC have not always given clear or desired results or alligned with the interests of the Empires and CONCORD, I do believe that ARC overall has been a force of good. The importance of Blue Stars during the Triglavian invasions and how to engage the Drifters and their doomsday weapons are great examples. Next there is the facilitating role that ARC has played in piecing together scattered or fragmented information that lead to finding the gates to Zarzakh and what the Drifters objectives could be. Lastly ARC fleets have a history of opposing capsuleer organisations operating besides eachother for the benefit of all within Empire Space.

I intend to have my next post on this topic be back on topic and be made within the next couple of days.

Regards,

DutchGunner

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How very kind of you to join us once again. Do not worry about your time with ARC being as long as it is, as mentioned above, you very much were part of it at the time of this incident, leading anti-State fleets with the objective of robbing secured relays, and even stepped in in defense of this massacre above.

Yet here is the thread, appropriately tagged as [ARC] Athounon data capture, where Priano-guri says that ARC is the entity behind this. Trying to pass this off as her personal project would be very transparently disingenuous, but you haven’t even really tried to do that. There has been absolutely no attempt from any ARC officers to either distance yourselves, condemn this initiative being started in your name, or even admitting any fault whatsoever. You, yourself, tried to defend it in this very thread.

I am sure this comes as an enormous relief to those slaughtered in ARC’s name back then. Do you also oppose Priano-guri’s initiative now, or just a nebulous notion?

Self-righteousness does not actually make someone right. Some of the greatest acts of evil in history have been committed by people thinking they are ‘a force of good’.

Instead, how about we address some actual points for a change? You want this to go back to the topic of your OP? How about you explain to me what the “good” of sharing these findings while the Deathless are ravaging entire constellations across civilized space is? It was with great effort that the Amarr Empire was able to secure the last drifter hive, preventing the likes of the Angel Cartel from gaining a foothold- yet even with their limited findings, these pirates immediately put them to work in augmenting their dreadnaught fleets.

Please do share how enabling the Cartel and the rest of the Deathless circle (not to mention lesser criminal syndicates and mad cults) to have full access to these technologies, even right after they have indicated exactly how they intend to use every single piece of technology they get their hands on, is being a “force for good”.

Unlike what Jenneth’s little conspiracies allude to, I have been a very vocal advocate for co-operation in the interest of fully unlocking the secrets of these hives and ensuring that another Drifter crisis never happens again, but the solution for this would be a secure joint research programme between the 5 occupying forces, not sharing with every last lowlife out there.

4 out of 5 of the hives are in the hands of CONCORD-aligned organizations, and the Collective, even if an outlier, has an extensive record of prioritizing the Drifter threat above everything else, with their forces even lending material aid to fleets dismantling Drifter labyrinth complexes across all 5 hives. They have demonstrated their ability to co-operate against the Drifters as readily as the Deathless-aligned pirates have demonstrated their intent to weaponize anything they get their hands on to turn against us all.

Would I have preferred that all 5 hives were held by CONCORD signatories? Maybe, though the conduct of the Aguard administration makes this a difficult call to make at the moment, but as things stand, I think it is very clear what the right call to make is.

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May I remind you of the time that you yourself commanded a fleet with Triglavian pilots as members to attack Caldari Navy forces and steal Triglavian data caches they had secured in Athounon?

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The claim itself is invalid, due to Priano-guri posted it from name of ARC, and she is a de-facto CEO of an executor corporation of the alliance. Her decisions are policies of the corporation and thus the alliance, unless it is some sort of deep personal issue, and even in that I’d say it will be tied to Alliance policy/politics.

I strongly recommend studying whom are you joining to avoid fighting wars that are not yours. The History explains the Present and defines the Future.

As I have already mentioned in discussion of Lumen, it’s basically not about what Empires or you and me think about ARC, but about what ARC has done against the Empires. When you do something hostile to an entity or person, it’s unlikely they will consider you a friend or ally, isn’t it so?

The basis of every belief shall be a factual data. The alliance you’re talking about was literally started by an outcast (ex-diplomat) of a traitorous alliance, who exposed herself as a slanderous, cowardly and dishonorable person, posting openly delusional lies and incapable of not just proving, but even standing for her words. Moreover, she expressed a hefty degree of irrational hostility when she was expected to behave as a diplomat.

That is most definitly not a person who could lead anything even remotely resembling a “force of good”, she suits more for leading an organization of villains from gallentean comics. And if you indeed fell for that being a “force of good”, then meet me in 4-4, I have a Carbon to sell you.

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If Priano-guri wasn’t acting on behalf of ARC then I’d very much like to know who gave them authority to split open Caldari Navy warships in the hopes that they might maybe have had something they could magpie up. I’m well aware that IKAMI is effectively defunct unshackling them from any obligations to Ishukone or Zainou Biotechnologies. I am also aware that they are no longer in a position of leadership of the Arataka Research Consortium. But what I can’t wrap my head around and have never seen fully answered is why the consortium is supposedly unable or unwilling to conclusively disavow ambulance-chasers who approach research and diplomacy with the same tenderness and care of a self-styled archeologist clearing topsoil with a load of dynamite. If this truly was done independently from ARC leadership’s decision in what is clearly to the detriment of the organization despite them freely advertising under its name, it seems clear that whatever can be said about their official role in the organization Priano has more influence over ARC than it has on them.

Regardless, lets cut straight to the matter at hand here. Opposition within the Caldari State to an open source development plan is an act of preserving our national sovereignty, rather than cowtailing to the whims of a internationalist capsuleer cabal who settled on a whitepaper memo in a limited hangout. Even if the State chose to adopt a closed development plan, that does not mean shutting itself off from the world and bogarting their research. It means maintaining absolute authority over who they choose to share that research with and what we get in exchange for that research. Anyone who says otherwise knows, at some level, that they have more to gain from freely expropriating the fruits of Caldari labor than the State would get from having their research plundered by their enemies without recourse. Not for nothing that those who were most vocal in supporting an open development plan were those with Federal sympathies, who otherwise might have to actually sacrifice something or make diplomatic concessions if they wanted a seat at the table.

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Well, at absolute base, it’s pretty simple: an egger of sufficient means acting even entirely alone can do this kind of thing, with little accountability beyond the disapproval of peers or empires (typically reflected in loss of standing, if the empire cares enough to change things).

Even relative to other wealthy and powerful people, as individuals we are ridiculously strong– each essentially the tyrants of our own petty states nobody can normally even invade. It’s not hard, either, to make ourselves near-impossible to effectively depose even with a rail flechette.

I know Ms. Priano personally; she’s not an ogre, but I suppose I’d say she’s … “impatient” … with what she’d likely identify as narrow imperial interests, especially in the face of shared dangers. That, and I don’t think she sees anything good coming out of allowing the balance of power among the empires to tip too strongly one way or another (and certain treaties would seem to agree).

That’s something that comes through in incidents like the “Shadow Wars.”

Now this is a much more interesting line of argument. I think it’s pretty much what the “joint” faction (Caldari, Amarr, Triglav) is thinking, restricting collaboration to those entities that actually have control over one of the hives, each therefore having something the others will want access to.

There are a few issues, the most immediate one being the clear power imbalance it creates. There’s a long-standing (though … somewhat inconsistent?) rule among the CONCORD powers that, for example, ship design needs to be handled in parallel: if anybody gets to play around with, say, modular Sleeper tech, everyone does. (It seems to be widely agreed that the Matari Loki made the best use of the opportunity.) This is done in order to keep the current order of things from getting swept away in an absurdly-enormous war nobody can be remotely sure they’d win.

Having the hive-holding powers be formally a closed loop is a step towards breaking that rule in a very thorough way, and there are two other obvious issues with it besides: EDENCOM and the Matari.

EDENCOM is a coalition entity from the word “go,” though it seems to have sprouted some autonomy of its own. There’ve been accusations it’s puppeted by the Amarr (if I remember, its top-level commander is from the Empire, and the Empire did fare very well during the invasions), but its position on sharing data is more in keeping with its origins. It’s hard to see it keeping many big secrets from its other sponsors.

The Minmatar Republic might not be as close to the Federation as once they were, but candidly I’d be surprised if they didn’t leak, or sell, a certain amount of what they learned. Strained as relations might be, the Federation did essentially sponsor the Minmatar Rebellion.

If I’m reading correctly, the Triglavians seem to want to make a smaller circle still: Caldari, Amarr, Triglav. (A trifecta; cute.) There’s likely an inherent problem in this: the hives’ best (or at least, weirdest and most alarming) finds to date require a complete set, demanding access to and interaction with all five. That the Triglavians are interested in this means they’re either less-practical than they seem or that they have ideas about how to get, or get the benefits of, access outside the circle. (Trading, as you suggest, seems an obvious course, but the Triglavians don’t seem to … do … that … much? They do reward service but when it comes to really valuable stuff they seem like more of a “come and take it!” crew, honoring a challenger’s mettle.) At least in that case they’d have the largest of the joint research groups and access to the most hives.

Basically, narrowing the research circle is a recipe for tension and intrigue, as what cannot be got by fair means will then be sought by foul. The State and Empire seem comfortable with that, but even if the benefits flowed ultimately to only a single power it’s uncertain whether and how much that power would ultimately benefit.

Sharing the data seems disfavored, but particularly for an entity with ARC’s priorities (which have included maintaining the balance of power– it’s a pretty conservative organization that way) it’s quite strategically defensible. When preparing for winter, it’s generally inadvisable to provoke the envy of your neighbors.

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Yes, this. Pretty much this. I couldn’t have said it better, and it definitely adds to the perception of them being “villains” jumped out from the pages of gallentean comics, known for their primitivity.

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Funny how everyone is apparently so very impractical when they disagree with you, isn’t it? A wiser woman might take that as a sign she may have to reassess her sense of practicality.

I would be interested to hear why exactly you attribute this way of getting access outside the circle to the Collective and not the State or the Empire. The other two are entertaining the idea of openly sharing, not a terribly impressive feat for the Collective to accomplish.

That is one of the most moronic things you have written here to date, and that’s quite the feat. You want to freely give everything to unlawful savages because if you don’t surrender everything they may try to take it anyways? Seems the ‘spineless worm’ descriptor was spot on after all.

Let them try.

Can you quit it with the ‘ARC wants balance’ schtick? Surely not even someone of your wits can honestly buy that after their conduct.

By the way, very curious how the dimwits in support of this suicidal policy always cling onto the bygone tech sharing policies of CONCORD, ignoring both the expulsion of WRITS from both State and Republic territories, as well as the fact that this policy advocates for open sharing. This is not about giving the Federation’s decomposing polity a pity seat at the table, it is about keeping it out of the hands of organizations like the Deathless.

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I believe that Aria, and SFRIM writ large, broadly view themselves as engaging in good faith and that they are acting in the interests of the cluster as a whole. I believe them when they say that Ms. Priano isn’t an ogre driven by pure cynicism and opportunism. But I do think that buried under their stated ideological motivations in pursing their ambitions are very real material conditions that are the primary factor in their decision making– Just like every other competent organization in New Eden. That being said, I think they’re eating around the proverbial crust of my argument to put a varnish of good intention over naked power politics.

When I said “who gave Priano the authority to act” that was a rhetorical question. I knew that the answer was “themselves” and that they have the legal authority to do so as a capsuleer. I know that ARC doesn’t necessarily have an enforcement and accountability mechanism to force their members hands into behaving in line with any unified code of ethics. I know that familiarity and comradery dictates that you don’t be a dick to the capsuleer that is the nominal founder of your organization and that you stand by them when they are being publicly criticized. I’d even go so far as to say that display of loyalty is admirable. BUT. There needs to be some recognition that ARC has achieved enough influence and authority by way of planting their flag on every major research initiative in New Eden that they really probably should have adopted some code of ethics to prevent this sort of… Optics nightmare that undermines their own experience. I think that the thing preventing that system of accountability is, to be honest, the perception that they can get away with it without consequences and carry on as if this weren’t a huge diplomatic sticking point. I hope you take me very seriously when I say, its been three years since this incident happened which should be proof that this isn’t something that can be shrugged off with no institutional changes at an organizational level. ARC is broadly held to a higher standard, and can’t continue to follow its previous ethos of “act now to secure our findings first, justify it based on our results later.”

Moving on from that, I think its kind of heavy handed to appeal to CONCORD’s standard of “controlled proliferation” given Ishukone directly intervening on ARC’s behalf when they submitted their appeal over Oveg Drust’s demands to hand over their stockpile of Trinary Relics. Where was the concern over the Caldari State exercising their national sovereignty even if it opposed the international order then?

Claims of the Triglavian Collective being unwilling to engage in trade negotiations are unfounded too given their willingness to provide logistical support to all factions active in securing a hive system as well. To say nothing of the dirty little secret the empires have been hiding under their skirt at Deepflow Rift anomaly signatures of Triglavian convoys moving between Abyssal space and empire space.

Lastly, to keep it brief, I personally don’t find the argument of “well if you don’t acquiesce to the demands of your enemy then they will just take what they want from you” to be a particularly compelling. I don’t think there needs to be any more elaboration on that.

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So … that might be true, but there’s a problem. ARC itself has always been a small circle of organizers and researchers giving shape to the frank chaos that is its coalition. They might have some real internal rules, but might just as easily be in effect a social circle; I’m not privy to the specifics.

ARC’s historically worked with basically anyone willing, so long as they don’t betray ARC’s actual operations. It’s hard to list every organization, or even actively hostile organization, I’ve fleeted with, though ARC brass might have a comprehensive list somewhere. A lot of them have been people whose ethics I might not think a lot of: criminals, terrorists, cultists, even kybernauts. A lot of them probably thought just as little of me. We worked together to do what needed doing– and for the rewards offered in exchange.

Between the nature of our companions and the potential implications of those rewards, I’m not sure I can imagine an ethical code we wouldn’t have been violating. We cooperated because the work was more important– that is, we felt we had to. ARC was founded to address emergent threats, and those threats were pressing.

What code hath necessity? What code will it even permit?

ARC is questionable as and in the ways capsuleers generally are questionable. “Naked power politics” is something we, in practice, live very close to as a class. Even those of us who aspire to better ultimately must do business with reality.

Hee. Ishukone playing the voice of moderation: not a rare thing. I wonder what their position on all this would be. There’s nothing particularly inconsistent in ARC finding at least an occasional ally in a particularly cosmopolitan and internationally-involved State megacorp, you know? Especially one that sometimes seems like it must have “be always the voice of reason” written into its charter somewhere.

That is interesting, isn’t it? One of the Collective’s more interesting traits is a sort of near-compulsive fair-mindedness. It operates strictly by their own rules, though. (As far as I know there’s no indication they got anything out of that? Aside from how everybody stands to benefit from everybody being set up to keep their own hive under control.) They do reward loyalty, but they also reward opposition in a way; for purposes of their provings I don’t seem to have been declared poshlost just for siding with EDENCOM. It’s very curious.

But I still can’t remember any instance offhand of them actually just trading. Can you? (Not rhetorical; I’m serious here.)

Can you point me to more about this? I’ve been a little out of circulation.

The argument’s more, “international power imbalances are a problem, one that plays out unpredictably; creating/promoting/allowing them is asking for trouble.” We live tucked among and around four great powers, each of which has casus belli against at least one other and each of which plays host to elements (Ms. Kim is a sterling example) who would be just as happy to see them all in a state of total war.

How that would go, is hard to predict. Though of course such partisans will argue otherwise.

More generally, though, Ms. Eskola-Fae, you seem to have the impression that I’m partisan on the subject of how research results should be handled. I do fly an officer role for ARC, but my actual place is with SFRIM, and LUMEN. Their allegiance to the Amarr Empire is straightforward, so mostly my discussion above was meant to be descriptive of the positions in play, more than taking sides.

I’m more interested in learning than winning anyway.

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Then I have a Carbon to sell you too! Just, please, make sure to not accept any isk-doubling services before buying my Carbon!

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Maybe my question was unclear. LUMEN helped us during:

  • the Triglavian Invasions,
  • the Triglavian raids that happened in the immediate aftermath of the Triglavian Invasions,
  • the punitive incursions into Pochven,
  • our conquest of the Eyrie system from the Drifters,
  • and probably a few more things which I am probably not remembering.
    With that in mind, my question is, what makes you think that LUMEN is trying to hinder us?

How you behave after becoming a Capsuleer is a choice. Some people become naughty. Others accept that with great power comes great responsibility. I am in the latter category, and do not appreciate being grouped with the former.

So?

Again, do not assume that holds true for every Capsuleer.

Whether someone is a hero or not is a subjective matter. It is a title you get from others based on their perception. I have received said title from two different sets of people. Who is to say that they were wrong because of your moral relativism?

I may be pretty, and I may be naive, but you know as well as I do, that from the Caldari perspective, the good of the whole comes before the good of the individual. To that end, we are always going to close ranks when outsiders attack us. That is what happened in Athounon. We are also going to remember such plays, and who orchestrated them, and call them out when they present themselves as a benefactor. That is what is happening here.

But if you associate yourselves with those who kill our people for knowledge and insights, regardless of how expendable they are in the grand picture, we will hold that against you. And when you call for runaway technological proliferation, I will oppose that, as people don’t use the technology we do have responsibly as it is.

Or could it be because it caused the deaths of our comrades in arms?

The same can be said for the Corporate Security Forces. Internal competition is a hallmark of our society. Mordu’s Legion is a respected mercenary company, who has been with us for literal centuries. ARC is not with us, and not done anything that benefitted us.

Then don’t defend the indefensible.

ARC has had plenty of time to respond to Makoto Priano’s actions. There has been no sign of ARC publicly and officially denouncing her deed. Nor has there been a sign of her deed resulting in any form of internal discipline.

I will respond to this, since I was one of the main commanders of EDENCOM-aligned Capsuleers during the Triglavian Invasions.

Firstly, we fought a reactive campaign against the Kybernauts. This means that regardless of what system the Kybernauts chose to primary, we would have mobilized and been there to oppose them within the hour. Thus your discovery of the significance of the blue stars did not change anything for us. What it did do was give the Kybernauts precise information about which systems would be valuable to their benefactors. ARC’s publication thus did more to aid the Kybernauts, than it did to aid those who opposed them. I am not claiming that this was intentional, but that is how the cookie crumbled. I will go even further and say that knowledge about the blue stars caused many capsuleers not to defend systems that were not final liminality candidates, resulting in a higher number of Triglavian Minor Victories than necessary, had the motivation provided by assuming the worst case scenario been allowed to continue existing.

Secondly, I do not remember seeing anyone bearing ARC idents in the fleets which I organized to defend aforementioned systems against the Triglavians and the Kybernauts.

I might have to revise my stance on that whole independent press thing.

We are in this for the survival and preservation of our culture. The survival and preservation of our culture depends on the strength of the State. The survival of the State depends on having an edge over those who would try to destroy it. Therefore, anyone whose goal is to hamper our attempts to deter invaders during peacetime, and outmatch invaders during wartime, by removing any edge we might have over them, is going against the interests of the State, and the culture it was designed to protect.

Any line of logic that resembles “They may be criminals, terrorists, cultists, and kybernauts, BUT…“ should be cause for intense, and long-term, introspection, about whether or not membership and/or co-operation with said entity is desirable.

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  1. Sheltering dishonorable personalities, which were already known for hostility.
  2. Public slanders.
  3. Refusal to answer for public slanders.
  4. Undiplomatic and outright hostile stance.
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Okay, you said a lot of stuff, Ms. Tereven, but something stood out.

Meaning you are not a moral relativist?

Let’s be clear, here, Ms. Tereven: Caldari culture is steeped in moral relativism, and if you are not self-identifying as such it is either because you are so entrenched in the Caldari perspective that you can’t see over the rim or you have fundamentally misunderstood our own culture.

The basic Caldari moral ideal is that, for the Caldari, “right” is to look after one’s own, and “wrong” is to go against them– no matter what that means. It’s an inward-looking moral universe that purports to offer moral guidance to its own category of person (“the Caldari”) and doesn’t presume to guide anyone else. It doesn’t particularly blame them for being “other,” it just hems out their paths because they are not the same.

That is moral relativism. Even when you say things like,

what you are really saying is that there is no way to defend ARC’s actions as being in the State’s favor. Likewise,

is a statement defining morality as and for Caldari and no one else. Morality is determined by one’s situation in the universe. That’s relativism.

The folk who don’t subscribe to relativism tend to be the universalist cultures such as the Gallente (universal, inalienable rights you get just for being human) and Amarr (one universal God, from whom all came and to whom all must return), seeing the whole star cluster as guided by a single moral light and therefore having no hesitation to try to bring the rest of the cluster into conformity with that vision.

ARC has long acted in accordance with its principles and beliefs. Its path diverged from the State long ago. You may consider it an enemy for that reason, but you shouldn’t assume the Maker agrees or is even paying attention. (The Winds might, but unlike the Maker they’re believed to 1) actively be on the Caldari’s side and 2) give more than a quarter of a damn.)

So,

I am, of course. As part of my own path, I cannot call one who kills many at little to no risk to her own life a hero. (Though I won’t say those calling you a “hero” are wrong by their own standards.)

It should be. It is. I’m the kind to ruminate on stuff more than is maybe healthy, and my position on basically anything is up for reevaluation kind of … forever?

Even so, being around the directrix and her people my relativism’s been under strain for a while now. It’s hard to encounter someone like Nauplius up close, see his work in detail, comfort the dying, and remain confident that “evil” is something inherently subjective.

My head tells me it is. My heart says there’s no way I can accept it, though, so maybe that’s how my own moral path is defined and constructed, now.

Maybe I’m just as entrenched in my own moral perspective as you are in yours.

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So science people want to science, bitter enemies want the science of the science people for themselves but not for their bitter enemies, enemies enemise eachother in space and at the public forums?

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But it is not.

Being a hero implies going beyong one’s duty to achieve an operational goal or to save more than one life while losing your own.

Please don’t mix it with what is called “heroes” or even more ridiculous “superheroes” in primitive and unintelligently barbaric gallentean comics.